Ranking every WR in NFL history is a daunting task -- rule changes have made comparing across eras very difficult and we have only three main stats to guide us. While I don't think it's perfect, I've come up formula that incorporates the important features of being a valuable WR in any era.

You know I'm worried about selling you guys on a system when I publish the results first. Here are the seven wide receivers that have posted the best statistics in NFL history (according to my formula):

I think it's generally agreed that those seven guys are among the very best WRs ever. No one should be upset seeing Rice and Hutson at the top, and Harrison/Owens/Moss in some order deserve the spot right behind them (and Moss should pass Owens before his career ends). Alworth (and Maynard) dominated the '60s and Largent (and Lofton) dominated the '80s; no one really dominated the '70s in the same way, although Harold Jackson and Cliff Branch were very, very good.

Since those seven guys come out on top, maybe my system isn't so kooky. I'll let you guys decide. Let me get a couple of things out of the way first:

1) Post-season stats are not included, yet. This gets complicated enough as it is -- I thought the first time around it was best to just stick to the regular season numbers and add playoff numbers into the system along with other modifications the next time around.

2) Rushing data, passing data and fumble data were also excluded for the same reason. And while important, each receiver's blocking ability was ignored because of a lack of any objective measure.

3) Yes, a player's stats do not perfectly tell the story of how good they were. The quality of the QB, OL and the system a team runs all heavily impact a WR's numbers. So does playing in Chicago compared to playing in Miami. These are all important factors but I chose to leave them out of the system and let each reader subjectively tweak a player upward or downward based on their own thoughts.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, the first step is to combine the three WR stats -- receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns -- into one stat: Adjusted Catch Yards. We know that a passing TD is worth about 20 yards and a rushing TD is worth about 20 yards, so it's not surprising that I'm stipulating a receiving TD is worth 20 yards. Doug has argued that at least in modern times, a reception is worth about six yards because of the correlation between receptions and receiving first downs, an important stat that unfortunately was not tracked for most of football history. I don't want to give too much credit to simple possession receivers, though, so I'm going to go with five yards per reception. Making 80-1000 equivalent to 65-1075 seems like we're giving enough of a reception bonus to me. We could quibble about making a reception worth anywhere from three to seven yards, and that might be one of the tweaks for version two of this series.

So we're off to a good start. We know how many ACY each WR has for each season of his career. But there's something else we need to consider: the difference between passing (or catching) and rushing:

Allow me to make some gross generalizations. When you’re a good passing team (measured by ANY/A), you probably won’t need to pass that often. You’ll score points and you’ll be winning, so you’ll stop throwing. If you’re a bad passing team, you’ll throw some INTs, have a bunch of three and outs, and are likely to have to pass a bunch in the fourth quarter. That’s exactly why raw passing yards is a bad way to measure passing production — bad passing teams are likely to have a bunch of passing yards late in the game and good passing teams aren’t going to accumulate many passing yards at the ends of games. That means passing yards doesn’t accurately measure passing ability, since it penalizes good passing teams and helps bad passing teams.

The opposite happens with rushing. If you’re a great rushing team, you’ll keep rushing. If you’re a bad rushing team, you’ll stop rushing.

It is obvious that we have to use per attempt statistics with QBs, although we certainly will give extra credit to QBs who are good and throw a high number of passes. Using just adjusted net yards -- passing yards + 20*PTD - 45*INT - SackYardsLost -- would be an inappropriate way to rank QBs. That's because 3,000 adjusted net yards on 400 attempts is a lot better than 3,000 adjusted net yards on 500 attempts.

The same theory applies to receivers, too. Having a 1200 yard season is more impressive when your team throws 400 passes than when it throws 550 passes. It's also a lot more valuable. Quantifying that difference is a complicated question, but to cherry pick a 2008 example, Derrick Mason had 1537 ACY this year while Lance Moore had 1523 ACY. Moore's team threw 636 passes while Mason's team threw 433 passes. Mason's season looks much more "impressive" to me.

So what do we do? I totaled the number of adjusted catch yards by all wide receivers (and only wide receivers) in the NFL each season. I also found the number of NFL (and AFL) passing attempts in that season. Then I divided the number of WR ACY by the number of team attempts; let's call this ACY/A. For the 2008 season, NFL WRs had 109,351 ACY and NFL teams passed 16,521 times, for an average of 6.62 ACY/A. Remember, that's the sum of all WRs; on an average passing team with an average passing distribution to RBs, WRs and TEs, all WRs will total about 6.62 ACY/A. No individual WR will match that number, of course, but the group of WRs will.

When we did the Greatest QB Ever series, it was easy to use the league average as a baseline -- QBs got credit for being above the baseline and received no credit for their work below the baseline. This system worked well to reward the elite and not merely the compilers. There isn't a natural baseline to use here, though -- we can't use 6.62 since no one will reach that. While arbitrary, I decided to simply divide the league ACY/A ratio by 3, and declare that the baseline for every season.

So now WRs will get credit for their ACY over one-third of the league average for all WRs per team, per pass attempt. To use some real numbers, if WR A's team passes 500 times, he'll need (in 2008) to have 1105 adjusted catch yards to be over the baseline -- maybe 60-705-5. On a team like the Saints with 636 pass attempts, a WR would need 1406 ACY (e.g., 70-896-8) to be above the baseline.

Let's compare Andre Johnson and Roddy White. Johnson had 115-1575-8 (2310 ACY) and White had 88-1382-7 (1962). Clearly, White's raw numbers are not as impressive as Johnson's. On the other hand, the Texans threw 554 passes and the Falcons threw 434 passes. So how do we calculate a score for White and Johnson? Johnson averaged 4.17 ACY/A while White averaged 4.52 ACY/A, a nice edge to White. But our baseline is 2.21 for the 2008 season, which means Johnson averaged 1.96 ACY/A over the baseline and White averaged 2.31 ACY/A over the baseline. While Johnson was less impressive on a per attempt basis, he was still terrific and his team threw more passes which means he was bringing more above baseline value. Therefore, we multiply their value over the baseline by their number of team attempts. That means Johnson has 1088 in Value and White has 1004 in Value. So Johnson ranks ahead of White, but it's closer than their raw totals indicate. I think that's pretty good.

That's pretty much how the system works, at least for modern players. There's one other important calculation -- an adjustment for games played. Steve Smith had 1931 ACY last year in only 14 games played. How do we handle that? The quick and simple fix is to divide the Panthers' number of pass attempts by 1.14 (16/14); since Carolina threw 414 passes, we'd say that Carolina threw 362.25 passes in games that Smith played. Obviously for Smith we can find out exactly which games he missed and how many passes the Panthers threw in the 14 games he played (352, to be exact). But for older players we'll have to approximate, so the formula of (WR games played / Team Games) * Team Pass Attempts will have to be used.

For Smith, he had 1931 ACY and his team threw (we project) 362.25 passes. That's an incredible 5.33 ACY/A ratio, and it's over three yards above replacement. Therefore, his Value for the season would be 1132, best in the league. Here's the list of the top 30 WRs in 2008:

How does that list look to you guys? Obviously the quality of the QB is significant when looking at a wide receiver's numbers, and that's ignored here. So it might be best to think of this as a ranking of the WRs' stats and not the WRs themselves. Even better, we could call this a statistical look at the WRs whose statistics produced the most value for their team. Tomorrow, I'll explain how to rank every WR in NFL history, and provide a list of the greatest WR seasons of all time. Wednesday I'll look at the top 100 WRs of all time, which star WRs have played in the most and least pass happy offenses, and other general thoughts.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 7:14 am and is filed under History, Statgeekery.
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You could generate an accurate average WR baseline if you used WR completions instead of league attempts as your denominator. You'd then need to adjust by the ratio of team attempts to average team attempts to give credit for playing in a non passing offense. Doing things this way would mean that completions are irrelevant as the baseline and WR both have the same impact.

One wrinkle I added was to divide yards by (pass attempts + sacks). My reasoning was that every time, say, Jake Delhomme drops back, there's a chance he'll throw to Steve Smith. If Smith doesn't get open and Delhomme throws to Muhsin Muhammed instead, that's a Panthers pass attempt that Smith didn't get and it counts against the denominator in figuring his ACY/A. Shouldn't it be the same if Smith doesn't get open and Delhomme takes a sack?

Obvious issues with this include inability to include QB scrambles (which should also count as a "pass attempt" that didn't go to the receiver) and lack of historical sack totals, which would mess with your old-time rankings.

I'm not entirely sure I get it. In the beginning of the piece, you say Masons season is better than Moores because BAL passed less. Then later you give Johnson a boost for being on a team that passes more?
Can you clarify?
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I don't know, this could very well be selective memory, but doesn't both CAR-recievers seem a bit elevated in your rankings? Certainly I would take the production of 2008 Bowe, R. Moss or Wayne over '08 Moose..

My first thought on the Carolina question is that both receivers were elevated because of the number of passing attempts, but not just because their production should be prorated. I was thinking that since Carolina ran the ball so much, their receivers rarely had to face a nickel or double coverage, since the D was focused on the run. I don't know how this could be separated out, but I don't think Moose should get credit for being on a team with two good running backs and a huge offensive line.

The modern Bears certainly don't have much -- '99 Marcus Robinson, '01 and '02 Marty Booker, and a 1300 yard season by Jeff Graham in 1995. The older Bears don't have much, either, but they do have at least three big time seasons -- Harlon Hill in '56 with 1128/11 on a team that passed just 250 times, Johnny Morris with a 1200/10 season in '64 and a 1026/13 season by Dick Gordon in 1970. But overall, yes, the Bears have had a pitiful amount of big WR seasons.

Good stuff, Jason. I struggled with including sacks into the formula or not. I agree with your analysis but part of me wonders how fair it is to penalize a WR for the number of sacks his QBs take. You make a good point.

Yes, Mason's season was better because his team passed less often; that said, we can't use *just* per attempt numbers; that's going to be unfairly biased towards guys on low passing teams. So to strike the balance, we use the difference between the WR's ACY/A and the baseline and multiply that difference by the number of attempts.

Say the league baseline is 2.2. If WR A gets 1500 ACY on 500 team pass attempts, that's 3 ACY/A and 0.8 more ACY/A than the baseline; therefore we multiply that 0.8 by 500, to give him a value of 400.

Similarly, a WR that gets 1720 ACY on 600 pass attempts, that's 2.867 ACY/A, which is 0.667 ACY/A over average. Multipled by his team's 600 attempts, that's the same value of 400. To get a value of 400 on a team that has just 400 pass attempts, he'd need to have 1280 ACY.

So assuming a league baseline of 2.2 (around what it currently is), a WR on a team that passed 400 times with 1280 ACY, a WR on a 500 pass team with 1500 ACY and a WR on a 600 pass team with 1720 ACY are all rated the same. That strikes a balance between high ACY/A and high ACY.

1) Remember this system is retrodictive and not predictive. For example, Chad Pennington averaged more ANY/A this year than Peyton Manning; according to the system Pennington was better than Manning. That doesn't mean Pennington *is* better than Manning or that Pennington *will be* better than Manning in the future. Over the course of just 16 games, we'll have some random results. Pennington had a career year and Manning had a down year; so Pennington ranking ahead of Manning in ANY/A doesn't mean ANY/A stinks just because Manning is better than Pennington. It just means that last year, Pennington's statistics were better than Manning.

Similarly, obviously Muhammad isn't better than Moss. But maybe his statistics were. Moss clearly had a down year and Muhammad had a big year. Now it's also possible that my formula is bunk, so I won't eliminate that option, either. But if you want to say Moss' year was better than Muhammad's because he had over 200 more ACY, you'll also have to say that Lance Moore's season was better than Donald Driver's because he had more ACY. So it cuts both ways.

2) As for Muhammad benefitting because of his surroundings, I'll go with a healthy "maybe". But there's no evidence that a great rushing attack helps a QB's passing numbers or vice versa, so I'd need to see some evidence on the RB/WR relationship before I was convinced. Obviously Fitzgerald and Boldin are at the top of this list, along with Calvin Johnson and several other WRs that had terrible rushing attacks.

Hm, your use of a "baseline" seems a little unfair on receivers like Lance Moore. They're punished for playing on a pass-first offense which plays out of a lot of multiple-receiver sets. Even so, Moore is the only Saint who makes your list.

Your numbers don't acknowledge the value of a WR-by-committee approach; Moore started only six games. He has essentially the same numbers as Boldin minus about 10%, but his value is barely one-sixth as great because he played more games (but probably fewer snaps): your numbers recognize that Boldin couldn't make plays while he was injured, but not that Moore couldn't do the same while he was standing on the sidelines waiting for Colston or Meachem to come out of the game.

Also, for the GameCenter era at least, it would be cool to work the WRs' catch percentage into the numbers somewhere. Short passes to Moore, Welker and Houshmandzadeh aren't designed to achieve the same end as deep balls to Jackson and Moss.

I agree that Moore may be "hurt" by this system. I've got two general thoughts on this:

1) You might want to look at this as a value creation system; in that regard, WRs that on on a team that uses a WR-by-committee approach *ARE* less valuable. So if this system penalizes them, that's good -- they should be. It's a lot easier to measure the value of a player than the ability of a player, and I think this system does a good job at measuring player value.

2) That said, the line between the most valuable WRs ever and the best WRs ever is a thin one, indeed. You might want to make manual adjustments for guys like Moore, although there won't be too many.

It is still worth keeping in mind that the goal of passing is to be good enough so you can run by the end of the game, so you will limit your attempts. A huge number of pass attempts, for the most part, isn't a sign of team quality and is not necessarily a sign of WR quality, either.

Thanks, Stuart! I get it now
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Yes, Fitz, Q and Calvin Johnson are on the top of the list, but does anybody really question the greatness of those guys? I, for one, would certainly question the greatness of Muhammad - an average reciever in my mind.
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Sure, your Manning/Pennington point is valid. I've been a football-fan for 2-2½ years so I'm still benefiting from a sense of "clear memory", so i doon't think I'm valueing Bowe, Moss and Wayne historically. Of course I read the non-clear-minded-hype in the media as well as anybody, so I don't know...

My point wasn't that Fitz, Q and CJ2 aren't bad -- but rather, they rank high on my list *and* play on teams with bad running games. Same with Brandon Marshall or Greg Jennings. So I'm not sure there's much of a correlation between having a good running game and a WR looking good in my system. Despite what the media says ;).

Not a criticism but an observation: Pennington's numbers were inflated by playing an extremely easy schedule (ranked 30th by FO) including both Western divsions. Manning played an average schedule (11th in FO's numbers) including both Northern divisions. That probably explains a lot of Pennington having a better ANY/A this past year.

I don't think I like the adjustment for games played. Smith did something stupid and got suspended, taking himself out of position to catch any passes in those two games. Even if a guy misses time with injuries that are not his fault, those are games he's not out on the field helping his team.

I haven't worked out the math, but in this system, couldn't a slow game (say, 2 rec, 30 yds) actually be WORSE for a star player's value than missing the game altogether? If he's out on the field, at least he's contributing something instead of nothing. This is especially important for evaluating great players, who might draw defensive attention and get shut down for a game, but free up opportunities for teammates.

Also, how would you apply this to the career rankings? How does this affect, say, Jerry Rice missing 1997?

If we're measuring a player's value over the course of a season, or career, I think we should only be measuring what he actually did. I'm all for making adjustments based on schedule length and the 1987 strike, but I think you're treading dangerously close to "what might have been" territory if you adjust for injuries, suspensions, or (for example) rookies who didn't start playing until halfway through the season.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding the way you apply this, but my general point is that I believe the scores for Steve Smith (and Brandon Marshall, etc.) should not be adjusted AT ALL. The Panthers threw 414 passes this season, not 362¼. If this were a pure average, I might go along with your methodology, but in this case I don't think it's appropriate.

Interesting results My gut reaction was that it'll screw up west coast vs vertical passing vs smashmouth offenses since receivers are utilized so differently, but I think it's already better than I'd be using plain old judgment.
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So now you've got a reasonable way to rate QB stats and a reasonable way to rate wide receiver stats. These are obviously linked, but you run into the chicken and egg problem -- Was Rice great because he had two HOF QB's or are his QB's in the HOF because they played with the GOAT?
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So you could create a virtual list of QB-Receiver-Year numbers and there'd be some sort of "best fit" line between how much is the QB and how much is the receiver. Though it seems like it'd have a lot of variables, and WR's who only play with one QB would give weird results... I don't know, in my mind I was envisioning something iterative like the way you generate SRS numbers. Anyway, the idea is you could probably do something to balance out the effect of quarterbacks on WR numbers.

I agree with Brad, and was going to comment on it even before I read his comment. I don't think players who missed games should have their team's number of pass attempts adjusted. Staying on the field, and being "durable" is an important part of being an effective WR.

I think adjusting for games played is entirely reasonable here. Assuming I follow this correctly, they're not giving bonus points to a receiver who played a partial season -- they're adjusting pass attempts to find out how good he was in the games he played. Once they find that, it's multiplied by the number of receptions he HAD, not how many he "might have had if he played the whole season.
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So if a guy plays 1 game and catches a 99 yard pass, he's still getting credit for only one reception, only 99 yards, and only one TD, not 16 receptions, not 1600 yards and 16 TDs. Such a player wouldn't make any sort of list because he only added a bunch of value for one game. They're not saying that Smith *would have* been the most valuable if he had played 16 games -- They're saying he WAS the most valuable even though he only played 14 games.